Addison Mizner reshaped Palm Beach's look, social environment

Friday

Historical Society of Palm Beach County(enlarge photo)Architect Addison Mizner lived in a Via Mizner penthouse with his monkey, Johnnie Brown. The monkey is buried in the courty

While Henry Morrison Flagler may have given birth to the town as Palm Beachers know it, it was architect Addison Mizner who, in setting down the Mediterranean Revival style, established Palm Beach's unique look and feel.

As a social architect, Mizner was the prototypical Palm Beacher. While he cultivated the image of a man-about-town, he also created some of the locale's most remarkable landmarks.

Yet the myth of Mizner undercut his contributions until a retrospective in 1977 brought renewed appreciation of his work.

His influence remains in the prevalent architectural style of the town. And while Mizner's buildings may have changed the look of Palm Beach, they also changed the social life of the town.

Artistic beginnings

Addison Mizner was the son of a diplomat who was posted to Central America. It was during a year in Guatemala that he was first exposed to Spanish architecture. It was also during this time that Mizner decided to take up art as a profession. He would attend the Spanish university at Salamanca where he would refine his artistic vision.

To disabuse the young man of the idea, Mizner's parents shipped him off to China with his older brother. During that period, Mizner was exposed to Asian architecture. Gardens there would shape his ideas regarding landscaping.

Afterward, he learned the practice of his trade from San Francisco architect Willis Polk, where he eventually became a partner.

When designing a home he took what might now be considered a holistic view. Mizner considered not only environment, but also the interior design in the way of furnishings, and he also considered the very basic building materials. When he found local materials and builders wanting, he developed his own firm so he could create what he needed. He also trained local tradesmen to meet his building needs.

But his artistic vision would have been of little import were it not for his ability to adapt to his social environment. He was known as a social architect because his commissions were private residences and because of his ability to get those commissions through the social circles in which he traveled.

Society architect

Mizner's way of finding business contacts was through social networking. A man of letters, he had not neglected other areas of his life for a sole focus on architecture. While in San Francisco he had contributed to a literary publication called The Lark. He would later be the co-creator of the popular "The Cynic's Calendar."

In his book, The Legendary Mizners, Alva Johnson recounts Mizner's early life in San Francisco's social scene. According to Johnson, Mizner eventually ran afoul of local social head of society Edward M. (Ned) Greenway. The dispute is told in a series of cartoons in the local newspaper. It ended with Mizner departing San Francisco's social scene.

After a period in the Pacific and Alaska, Mizner moved to New York in 1904. There he meet social architect Stanford White. He accepted his first social commission, the interior design of a townhouse owned by Mrs. Stephen Brown. This was the beginning of his Long Island practice, which lasted until the onset of World War I.

In 1918, Paris Singer persuaded Mizner to move to Palm Beach. The town's social life was then dominated by two main hotels — The Royal Poinciana Hotel and what would become The Breakers — and Flagler's Whitehall. Recognizing the incongruity of northeastern architecture in subtropical Florida, Mizner's accumulated ideas found their expression in the first structure that would wed his artistic vision and the town's social underpinnings.

He was commissioned to create a building whose primary purpose was to attend to the needs of military officers wounded in World War I. But the war ended before the building could serve its primary purpose, so it came to be used for its secondary purpose: as a center for social activities that would rival the two local hotels. The Everglades Club brought together the two aspects of Mizner's life as a social architect.

The Everglades Club

The Everglades Club launched Mizner's career in home designing in Palm Beach. It also marked a profound reshaping of the town.

Mizner confronted two realities when he arrived. The first was that there were few true permanent residences. The other was the architectural character of the town.

According to Addison Mizner: Architect of Dreams and Realities by Christina Orr-Cahall, the "houses which had been built were in northern styles — predominantly 'shingle style' houses with deep porches — and not particularly well-adapted to the southern climate." Mizner's Spanish style would change that.

The Everglades Club incorporated many of the ideas of Spanish architecture Mizner had absorbed. When the war ended, the site, which had originally been meant to be a hospital, became a popular private club.

Following the success of the Everglades Club, Eva Cromwell Stotesbury sought out Mizner to design a Palm Beach residence that would become known as El Mirasol. The new home helped transform Stotesbury into Palm Beach's new social monarch. Like the Everglades Club, it also became a place of social activity, further diffusing Palm Beach's social environment.

Decline and reappraisal

Following Mizner's death in 1933, new styles came to the fore. Mizner's style fell victim to the myth of Mizner. The belief that he dreamed up homes that were missing vital components undercut his reputation. Compared to the changes in architectural tastes brought on by the rise of modernism, the buildings of Mizner seemed fussy and overdone. The first building to be demolished was the first commissioned: El Mirasol.

It wasn't until a 1977 retrospective organized by Orr-Cahall and the Norton Gallery of Art of Mizner's architectural legacy that his work was seriously reconsidered.

Mizner's legacy outlasted both his buildings and his later competitors. In a few short years, Mizner had profoundly changed Palm Beach's look and social environment.